Walter Raleigh

Walter Raleigh, Architect of Empire, was a Christmas present.  It's academic history, for which I've a smaller appetite these days.  I understand there are limited sources for his biography,which has to be considered. Anyhow, I just finished it:  Some things which struck me:

• a lot of parallels between the treatment of Ireland and America (i.e.,Virginia). In both cases England was dealing with natives and trying to "plant" colonists. In the case of Virginia there was much ignorance and little attention to logistics.
• the English thought of their efforts in America as different and more enlightened than those of the Spanish, partly because the Spanish were Catholic and England's adversary, partly from learning about the Spanish conquest and rule.
• while dealing with the monarch was much like dealing with our current President, requiring much flattery etc. Queen Elizabeth I and King James I had the Tower and eventually the executioner's axe.
• government was very fluid and not well defined; the most obvious example is the ease with which government resources were used for privacy.
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Linking "Vertical Farms" With Microgrids

If I understand this article, a microgrid is a set of power generators dedicated to supplying a set of power consumers.  When the generators are a combination of solar and natural gas and the consumers are "vertical farms" there might be a workable and economic combination.  Vertical farms use lots of energy (the old dream of using sunlight which I laughed at years ago seems now defunct).

The big advantage of a microgrid is that it can be installed along with the vertical farm, so you don't rely on the power company to have the capacity to support your farm.  The microgrid operator can guarantee a price, making it easier to figure out your business plan.

Seems to me in the long run the microgrid is not the best solution.  Vertical farms need a lot of energy and for many hours in the day (apparently if you blast a seeding with light for 18 hours a day instead of 6 you get more growth--that's my impression). But it strikes me that plants are relatively forgiving, which means if you're operating a smart transmission system, vertical farms could easily be cut off when the system gets overloaded for some reason.  See this.

I assume it's also true that there are economies of scale in power generation.  Such economies should mean a power company could undercut a microgrid in many cases.

The article notes it's not clear what price for electricity would enable vertical farms to make a profit.

We'll see.

Telework--What Will USDA Do?

OPM is out with guidance to agencies encouraging telework due to Covid19. 

Earlier in the administration Sec. Perdue made drastic cutbacks in the USDA employees authorized to telework.

So far there's nothing on the USDA website about telework.

Caldwell's Age of Enlightenment

As a thinker, Christopher Caldwell is a good writer.  His words flow, and you ride with them, until suddenly there's a problem.

Bpttomline--I don't like his style--

I'll pick out one paragraph in his final chapter

"Those who lost most from the new rights-based politics were white men.  The laws of the 1960's may not have been designed explicity to harm them, but they were gradually altered to help evceryone but them, which is the same thing.  Whites suffered because they occupied this uniquely disadvantaged status under the civil rights laws, because their strongest asset in the constitutional system--their overwhelming preponderance in the electorate--was slowly shrinking, because their electoral victories could be overruled in courtrooms and by regulatory boards where necessary, and because the moral narratives of civil rights required that they be cast as the villains of their country's history. They fell asleep thinking of themselves as the people who had built this country and woke up to find themselves occupying the bottom rung of an official hierarchy of races."

page 276

Notice what he does there.  In the first sentence the losers are "white men".  By the end of the paragraph "they", who are the bottom rung, are "whites". To me that's sloppy thought. Somehow the advances women have made since the 1960's are ignored. To be consistent he'd have to discuss an ethnic/gender  hierarchy, but that would complicate his argument.  He'd have to recognize that white women have gained during the period.

He's also playing games with the causes.  Assume that white voters were the "overwhelming preponderance" of the electorate in the 1960' in part because of the denial of the right to vote in the South.  The civil rights laws were passed by that overwhelming preponderance (85 percent in 1960). Whites still maintain their preponderance and will for another 20 years or so. The Republicans have had a majority on the Supreme Court since Nixon.  Give Caldwell credit though--he doesn't name a villain to account for the changes other than the sleepiness of whites.

There's an interesting book to be written discussing the last 60 years, paying attention to what was lost and what was gained, but it isn't this book.

Every Cow Has "Her People"/

Vox has an interview with the director of "First Cow", who comments of the cow: "She had her people."

She also agrees with the interviewer: “Milk is so exciting.”

That Was the Week That Was

I'm showing my age in the title I chose--see this wikipedia explainer.

For Democrats, and political observers, it's been 7 days of twists and turns.  I'm amused to see Hugh Hewitt's Mar 1 oped: and the Michael Tomasky's piece in the New York Review of Books.

Both remind me of this

Why I Voted for Warren

I voted for Elizabeth Warren yesterday.  I've been a supporter of Klobuchar for as long as she was in the race and would have voted for her had she not withdrawn.  So my choices yesterday were Bloomberg, Biden, and Warren.  Sanders is both too old and too radical for me to consider, though I will vote for him if he becomes the Democratic nominee.

My bottomline was that anyone my age is too old for the job. I think I'm still pretty good mentally.  My memory fails occasionally, more than it used to, but I can analyze and write pretty well.  Assume that Bloomberg and Biden are equally capable.  But I find it hard to imagine that either man would, if elected, be able to credibly plan to run for reelection. That's just an age too far.  So they'd be a lame duck  immediately.  The record of our presidents during their second terms when they're lame ducks is not great.

The VP,  whoever it is, would naturally want to run for president in 2024, which would likely mean she'd need to establish some distance from the president just to have their own identity. Meanwhile other Democratic politicians would be maneuvering to run as well.  All that means big difficulties in getting the party to come together and support the President's proposals.

Applying the logic above leaves me with Warren as my choice.  I'm not fond of some of her plans, but I like her brains and her passion, so she was an acceptable choice. When I voted, I realized it was a symbolic vote, since she had no chance to win delegates in VA.  But that's life. 

When You Know You're Losing It

When you tweet about the silent generation finding "it's voice."

On the other hand, the title of this post isn't "When You Know Your Losing It"

If all this is too cryptic, congratulations--you're a millennial.

Famous Last Words--I'll Give It All Away

Steve Jobs' widow says:

"“I inherited my wealth from my husband, who didn’t care about the accumulation of wealth,” she told the New York Times. “I’m not interested in legacy wealth buildings, and my children know that. If I live long enough, it ends with me.” [emphasis added]

IIRC Andrew Carnegie wanted to give away all his money.  He didn't accomplish that.  As the article at the link observes, there's still a Carnegie Foundation which gives away money each year.

Wjhy iis it hard for the rich to give away all their money (those who want to, like Carnegie and Jobs)?

• money has this way of earning more money, You have to run faster just to stay in one place, much less lower the stock of assets.
• those who manage the money as the donor grows old and after they die have a vested interest in keeping the flow of money going. 

Be Afraid--What Are the Odds

I think the odds for the Covid virus having major impact on American society are low.  I might be unduly affected by the experience of the Ebola panic, when a certain person was panicking (initials DJT).

On the other hand, I think the odds for a very screwed-up transition from the Trump administration to a Democratic president in 2021 are about 100-1 (assuming we do in fact defeat the man).  The Obama administration started the transition process back in the spring of 2016.  Of course they knew they were leaving, but Trump will have problems imagining that process so I don't expect him to approve any advance planning before Nov. 2020.  After election day, assuming again he's defeated which I'm not offering any prediction for, he will be in no mood to facilitate any planning, so the process will have to be carried out by career officials, otherwise known to Republican partisans as the swamp.